An aggressive attack on Labor's industrial relations laws, being led by business groups and conservative ''fringe groups'', is wilfully ignoring the country's ''economic miracle'' since 2009, a leading workplace lawyer will tell a workplace conference on Monday.

The University of Sydney's annual labour law conference will on Monday debate whether Australia's industrial relations system is helping or hindering productivity.

And it will attempt to highlight that, at the next election, neither of the major political parties has promised any major changes to workplace laws.

It comes as a key employer group also issues a warning on Monday that ''sensible'' changes must be made to the Fair Work Act to support productivity and job growth.

Mr Bornstein is among a dozen speakers on Monday at Sydney University's conference. He will say that the nation has boomed since the introduction of the Fair Work Act in 2009, and that Australia has had ''21 consecutive years of economic growth''.

Advertisement

He draws parallels between the reporting of industrial relations in Australia and the debate around climate change. ''At times, both have involved an assault on rationality, scepticism, facts, data and science … Each new day can feel like a struggle for the values of the Enlightenment.''

He argues this is best shown by the debate in recent years about Australia's productivity. Mr Bornstein says productivity had lagged in Australia and other developed countries ''since the late 1990s'', and declined under the Howard and Rudd governments.

It developed into a ''crisis'' only after a concerted political campaign by the federal Coalition, industry bodies and ''far-right fringe groups'' following the 2010 federal election, Mr Bornstein argues.

But Australian Bureau of Statistics data ever since late 2010, he says, has shown labour productivity substantially increasing. And he argues the growth in productivity was mostly the result of improved infrastructure, skills and training - not labour laws.

The Australian Industry Group's workplace relations director Stephen Smith will argue that, in fact, there are serious problems with Australia's workplace relations system.